


Emily

by chelseagirl



Series: Ella [16]
Category: Alias Smith and Jones
Genre: Courtship, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 12:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17960264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chelseagirl/pseuds/chelseagirl
Summary: Settled now in Colorado, Kid Curry begins to think he may have met the right girl to settle down with.  Hannibal Heyes isn't quite so certain.Warning:  several characters are dealing, onstage and off, with the death of a small child.  Also one character has some rather ignorant thoughts about Native Americans.I would describe this story as a "bonus track" -- something left off the original album and now added for the CD rerelease. So to speak.  More on this in the note at the end.





	Emily

_Come won't you walk with me, Griselda_  
_Wearing the dress that moonlight shines through._  
_I am a sad and lonely boy . . ._  


"Griselda" - The Holy Modal Rounders

  


Jedediah Curry sat on a red-and-white checkered cloth, under the shade of an overspreading tree. The young lady who was with him smiled prettily and offered him another piece of blueberry pie.

"No thanks, Miss Emily," he said, looking at her fondly. "This has been quite a picnic, though. There was a time when eating out of doors meant flapjacks, jerky, and enough of Heyes' black coffee to burn a hole in a solid cast-iron safe door."

The sound of the girl's laughter pealed out, mixing with the Kid's own baritone laugh. "You're so funny, Jed," she said.

"Actually, Heyes came up with that one," said the Kid, never one to take the credit that was due to another.

"But the way you say it," she said. "You just make me laugh."

He looked at her. What a picture she made, in her pale blue dress and white trimmings. Her light brown hair was arranged becomingly, neither simple and severe, nor elaborate and matronly. Her face was practically the standard of beauty -- oval in shape, the nose small, and the mouth a rosebud underneath. And her eyes, those sparkling grey eyes! They practically danced when she laughed, so that he wanted to make her laugh, over and over again.

Emily Paulson was almost the only girl he'd ever met who thought he was a better storyteller than Hannibal Heyes. She was sweet, and pretty, and smart -- but not too smart -- and she sang like an angel and cooked like a dream. In just about every way, she was perfection in petticoats.

Except one. She wasn't Sandy Nicholls Johnson.

And for a moment, he saw in his mind's eye another face, one with big dark serious eyes and something of her Blackfoot father in the shape of the cheekbones and the nose. Emily could have been from the West, the East, the South . . . she even could have been an English rose. But Sandy's beauty had something in it of the wildness of the West, just as there was something untameable that coexisted with her sweet domesticity.

Curry shook himself. Sandy had been gone for a long time, and even though he’d fallen for her harder than any woman he’d ever met, he’d decided some time ago that she wasn't coming back. Her abduction, over two years ago now, had scarred her in ways that might not ever heal. In reaction to the violation which her kidnappers had committed on her, she'd withdrawn far into herself, and her reactions to the outside world had mostly been those of abject terror. The last time Curry had seen her, she hadn't even recognized him, but had shrunk from him in horror -- him, the man she'd all but promised to marry.

Her father, Albert Raintree, had taken her back to his people, the Blackfoot nation, in the hopes that his tribal healers might be able to reach her. Curry had wanted to go with them, but Raintree forbade it, saying that Sandy needed to be away from everything that had hurt her so badly. That wouldn't have stopped Curry, except for two things: he knew Raintree was right, and more immediately, because Hannibal Heyes had been shot in the course of Sandy's rescue, and was near death's door himself. So Jed had watched Sandy's father drive away with her, she curled up and whimpering in the back of his cart. Sandy, who in ordinary circumstances could ride like the wind.

Raintree had written two letters. One was addressed to him, Jed Curry, and it was waiting for him in San Francisco when he'd returned there, a few weeks after he'd watched her drive away. The other was addressed to Ella Hart Heyes, his partner's wife and Sandy's longtime friend and protector. It arrived a few days later. Both of them said approximately the same thing: Sandy had retreated far inside herself. The shaman and the wise women of the tribe had ways to reach her. However, it might be a long time before Sandy completed her journey and returned to them. It was also possible she would choose to remain with her father's people, even when the healing process was complete.

There would be no further letters. They were to let the tribe's legal representative know their whereabouts, so that Sandy could make her choice when the time came. Since said representative, Jeremy Chadwick, was Ella's best friend and former law partner, there would be no problem with that. But not the combined efforts of Curry's feeling blue eyes, Heyes' silver tongue, and Ella, who had been known to make juries weep _and_ who had blackmail material enough on Jeremy for a lifetime, could get any more information out of him.

The problem was, Jeremy didn't know anything. Sandy was safe, but she had never come back, never even written. And it was well over two years since Jed Curry had laid eyes on her. When they’d been in New Orleans, he’d run into his old flame, Michelle Monet, and for a time he’d tried to rekindle that romance, but in the end, they just hadn’t wanted the same things.

Time to move on with his life, if he could. Pretty Emily Paulson was the first woman since that misstep with Michelle who'd made him wonder if maybe, just maybe, he could love again.

 _Right now,_ he thought, _I'm thinking that just maybe I can._ He looked at Emily and wondered what it would be like to kiss her.

A moment later, he wasn't wondering any more. Her lips were soft and delicious, her breath sweet, and her wide-eyed innocent surprise when they finally broke away from each other was enough to capture a heart that was half-hers already.

###

"Well, you look like the cat that swallowed the canary, Kid." Hannibal Heyes couldn't help but grin as he saw his partner enter the room, with a spring in his step and a smile on his face. This was the Kid Curry he’d always known, but hadn’t seen much of lately. "Wouldn't have something to do with a certain young lady, would it?"

"Just might," said the Kid. "Just might, at that." He tossed an envelope to his partner. "Happened to call at the post office, on my way back from the best picnic of my life. You got another letter from Europe."

Heyes reached out for the letter, trying to betray less eagerness than he really felt. He hated it when the Kid saw him lose his cool. He glanced at the postmark. "Another one from Venice. She's actually come to a standstill for more than a couple of days. Guess this Venice must be somethin' to see."

"Ain't that the place with all the canals? And the big old houses built right out over them?" asked the Kid. "Soapy told us about visitin' there, didn't he?"

"I think he did, Kid. Big Mac, too, on the trip where he picked up that famous bust of his." And the partners shared a grin, remembering Big Mac McCreedy and all the trouble over the famous bust of Caesar that he just couldn't seem to hang onto. The one that now stood proudly on display at the hacienda of his rival turned brother-in-law Armendariz, once and for all.

Heyes slit open the letter. As he pulled out the thin sheet of paper, he saw something flutter to the floor. A photograph, which fell face down. He picked it up, but to his disappointment, it was just a scenic picture. "Yep. Big old houses on canals. I was kinda hopin' she might actually be _in_ the picture, but she probably bought this from a picture card dealer or somethin'." He handed it to Curry. "You wanna take it and show Miss Emily? I assume you're goin' callin' again tomorrow."

The Kid grinned. “Heyes, you know me too well.” He left the room, his step light.

Kid Curry was practically a ray of sunshine, these days, thought Heyes, gloomily. After all they’d been through over the past couple of years, he supposed it was a good thing that somebody was happy. He wondered if Ella was happy over there in Europe, but he knew the answer. Neither he nor his wife had felt a whole lot of happiness in the year since their four-year-old daughter Rachel had died in a deadly influenza epidemic. Ella's every letter was full of her adventures, descriptions of old paintings and buildings that obviously meant more to her than they did to him, and funny stories about the people she met along the way. Those he liked best, because he could picture them. And in every letter, she told him how much she loved and missed him. And how she couldn’t face coming back, not quite yet, not to the place where Rachel had died and lay buried.

Heyes understood. How many times in the past had he just taken off and left his troubles behind? Just got on a horse and rode and rode until it didn't hurt so bad, anymore. It was funny to think that he was the one settled down here in Colorado, looking after an old played-out silver mine that he’d won in a poker game that had turned out not to be played-out after all. Meanwhile Ella, always the one who’d been firmly rooted, was working out her hurt by travelling all over Europe, looking at old paintings and older buildings.

But it was better than the month after Rachel died when she hadn’t been able to speak at all. She simply shut down, unable to be strong anymore. Heyes knew that she blamed herself, because she’d been the first to come down with the influenza that Rachel had eventually died of, and even though he’d told her over and over again that it wasn’t her fault, she couldn’t quite believe it.

It wasn’t that he didn’t miss Rachel as much as she did. Once the little girl had learned to talk, she’d become daddy’s little girl. She would sit on his lap for hours, and they’d tell each other endless stories, Heyes’ true (if somewhat edited for the consumption of a young child), and Rachel’s the product of her fruitful imagination. Ella and the Kid would call them Silver Tongue and Little Miss Silver Tongue, and listen to the two of them, without even trying to get a word in edgewise.

But his way of mourning was different. He threw himself into his work, and he went to her grave every morning at dawn. Even after Ella recovered her voice, she was listless, depressed and unfocused. Until the day she received a letter from New York, and he found her laughing.

“Talk about terrible timing,” she said to him, eyes lively for the first time since before their daughter took ill. “My publishers want to send me to Europe. They want me to give a series of talks on women in the Wild West, in my novels and in real life. I’ll have to write and say I’m just getting over an extended illness and I can’t possibly.”

Somehow, after they’d left San Francisco, Ella had never set up another legal practice. They moved around so much for awhile that there wasn’t really a chance for her to even try. She’d finally sat for the Colorado bar, and was admitted, but she had very few connections here in Denver, and as she’d said to Heyes more than once, a woman who wasn’t known to the community already was at a double disadvantage. Anyway, Rachel was demanding a fair amount of her attention, especially after her nanny Gloria left them to nurse a sick friend, so Ella never quite got started. Instead, she’d begun writing books about the Wild West -- not exactly dime novels, but not what Heyes would have expected her to write, either, considering what he knew about her taste in reading material.

“No, you won’t,” said Heyes.

“No I won’t what?” she asked.

“You won’t tell him you’re not going. Ella, this is just what you need -- a change of scenery, new places, new people. And you’ve always wanted to go to Europe.” He thought for a minute. “He payin’?”

She nodded.

“Then it’d be like sinful or somethin’ not to go.” He grinned at her.

“Will you come, too?”

His look changed to one of discomfort. “Well, Ella, I think it’d be pretty hard for me to get away right now, to tell you the truth. This mining venture we’ve gotten into is at a critical place at the moment, and I can’t just walk away from it and take a trip to Europe. How long do you think you’d be gone? Three months?”

She looked back at the letter. “About that. If I go.”

“If you don’t do this now, you’re gonna be real sorry later.”

She wired her publishers the next day.

Three months had stretched into four, five, six, and still Ella hadn't set a date for her return. Heyes got probably two or three letters a week from her, although the post was so slow coming over from Europe that sometimes they’d get bunched up and five or six of them would come all together. He didn’t reply very often, because she moved around so much that he was never sure his letters would catch up with her. Before Venice, she'd been in a city called Florence, or something like that. Some lady's name. And there'd been Rome, and Zurich, and Paris, Avignon, London, lots of places he couldn't even remember. Her publishers apparently had the same problem, and she wrote to them less frequently than she did to Heyes -- once or twice they had even wired him here out West, to find out just where she was, when they'd lost track of her. And they were in New York City, right where the mail boats came in.

Anyway, he’d never been much of a letter writer. And he definitely didn’t plan on telling her that the Kid was courting Miss Emily Paulson.

It was a long time since Sandy had gone away, and nearly as long since they'd had any word of her, but Ella couldn't give up on the idea that her former ward would return to them. Especially not after losing Rachel. She hadn’t reacted very well to Jed’s courting Michelle, during that brief time in New Orleans, and Michelle had at least had a prior claim on him, of sorts.

This was something Ella was just not gonna understand.

###

Emily Paulson knew that she was pretty. And sweet -- everyone always told her so. She knew how to make a home, too. Her plain sewing was impeccable, her embroidery charming, and she was one of the best cooks west of the Mississippi. Everyone in and around town agreed, and her father had the belly to prove it.

And with all that, she was twenty-three years old and still unmarried, very nearly an old maid.

The problem was that there just weren’t very many interesting men in Denver in those days. Emily didn’t intend to settle for some older man looking for a wife only after making his fortune the slow way, nor for a callow youth or a rough miner suddenly turned magnate. So, the first time she laid eyes on her father’s new business associates, the owners of the mine that he was going to work for as chief consulting engineer, she decided to set her cap for one of them. Even if they did have a disreputable past, they’d made good on their reformation for years now. Everyone, after all, had heard of Kid Curry and Hannibal Heyes and the famous amnesty that had finally been won. And even if they’d won the mine in a card game, they were setting about running it in a serious, responsible manner.

Besides, she’d never seen two such good-looking men in her entire life.

At first she wasn’t sure which one she liked better. There was so much about both of them that appealed to her. The dark-haired, dark-eyed one was so quick and clever -- she could just listen to him talk for hours. And the golden haired one, with the sky-blue eyes . . . maybe he was even better. He could just listen to _her_ talk for hours.

In any case, the matter was quickly decided. The second time they came to the house, or the third, Heyes brought a wife and child with him. The wife was a tall blonde who was pretty enough and clearly had an affectionate way with her small daughter, but talked like she'd swallowed a dictionary. Worse, in the course of complimenting Emily on the meal, Ella Heyes cheerfully confessed to complete ineptitude in cooking and needlework, as though it was perfectly natural for a woman to be that way. Everybody knew that women belonged in the domestic sphere, nurturing and inspiring their menfolk as they did battle out in the world. But this Ella seemed regretful that she wasn’t a lawyer – a lawyer!! – anymore. Hannibal Heyes deserved better than that -- even if he and his wife did seem to get on awfully well, and even if he actually seemed to encourage her in her unwomanly behavior, saying something about a bar exam coming up. All those years as an outlaw had taken their toll on him, Emily supposed, and he'd probably just lost track of how things should rightly be.

Jedediah Curry seemed to appreciate her cooking more, anyway.

The problem with interesting men with pasts was that all too often, other women were part of those pasts. She knew that there was a claim on Jed Curry's heart already. Emily was quite sure that she'd like this Sandy, from what she'd heard of her, a lot more than she liked Heyes' wife. But Sandy clearly wasn't coming back. She'd probably fallen in love with some bronze-skinned warrior whom she'd seen bare-chested, resplendent in feathers and war paint, and was Missus Red Cloud Strongbow, with a sweet little papoose and another on the way.

So Emily had bided her time, and made sure that dinners were extra-good when Jed Curry was coming to dine, and that she wore her prettiest dresses and paid him special attention. She'd felt genuine sadness at the loss of lively little Rachel, and had been there for the family as much as she could. She felt like she understood Ella Heyes a lot more when she saw how devastated the woman was at the loss of her little girl, although afterwards she couldn't understand how Ella could leave her husband behind at such a time, and go on that long trip abroad. He seemed to understand, though. Emily decided she'd just never figure out the Heyeses and it was better to accept them without questioning, like Jed did.

And gradually, Jed had begun to notice her special attentions, and then to respond to them.

And now he was courting her. The kiss today made it for certain.

There was a big barn dance, at the Burney place just outside of town, Saturday night, with the best fiddler and other country-style musicians in this whole part of Colorado. Nearly everyone within riding distance was going to be there. She and Jed were going together, and everyone would see she was his girl, now. And then he'd walk her home, and kiss her again. She was sure of it.

Jed Curry was going to be hers, and she his, forever. Emily Paulson was going to be Emily Curry, married to the man of her choice, at last.

###

"Sure you ain't comin', Heyes?" Kid Curry walked into the room. He hadn't dressed up in one of his fancy suits, but his jeans were clean, and his shirt was fresh and that blue shade that brought out the blue of his eyes. His dark blond curls were slightly crushed by the brown cowboy hat with its big silver conchos.

Hannibal Heyes rolled his eyes at his partner. "Me, at a barn dance? I don't like dancin' with barns, for one thing, and there ain't gonna be any poker there, to speak of. Besides, won't I be a little bit in the way, with you and Miss Emily and all?"

"Well, just don't sit around all evening mooning over Ella's letters, that's all."

"Kid, I'm not some lovestruck puppy, like you are. I'm goin' over to the Knave of Hearts to play some cards, drink some whiskey, and _then_ I'm gonna come home and moon over Ella's letters." Heyes grinned. "Least, I'm gonna do the first two. She's havin' a good time over in Europe, and I'm plannin' to do the same right here in Colorado." And then he'd come home and think about Rachel, as he always did on these long, lonely nights, sleeping alone in that big bed. He'd come near death so many times, in so many scrapes that he and the Kid had gotten themselves into. Why was it that an innocent little four year old girl should find such an early death when he'd cheated the Reaper again and again?

The somber mood that his thoughts created moved him to ask something he'd thought about many times, but never before voiced. "Kid, what if Sandy _does_ come back, now that you're courting Emily?"

The Kid's eyes darkened, from a bright sky blue to the color of that same sky when a storm was threatening. "Sandy ain't comin' back. She'd have been back long ago, if she was comin'. Or at least she'd have written."

"I just want you to be sure about this."

"How many times do I have to tell you, Heyes? I am sure! What is it with you, anyway? Every time I look at a girl, you find a dozen reasons why she's not good enough. Maybe Michelle wasn’t the one, but I can't spend the rest of my life feelin' sorry about Sandy. Emily's beautiful, she's sweet, and I'm happy when I'm with her. She may just be the woman I've been lookin' for."

"I just wanna make sure you know what you're doin', is all."

"This from the expert on marriage." Even before he'd finished with the words, he was horrified by what he'd said. But it was too late to take them back.

Heyes just looked at him, his dark eyes unreadable.

"I'm sorry, Heyes. I didn't mean that."

"Ella's not doin' anything you and me haven't done, Kid. Sometimes you just gotta keep on moving, you know? That's how it is for her, right now. I just wish I could be there with her."

"Well, why don't you go, Heyes? Meet up with her, see some of Europe yourself."

"What, and leave you and Chuck Paulson to run the HC mine right back outta business? Not likely. Besides," his voice turned soft, "somebody's gotta to stay around to visit Rachel." To visit her graveside, that is. Right now that was what he needed to do, just like his wife needed to keep running. Neither way was wrong.

"I'm sorry, Heyes. Oh yeah, I forgot. Some mail came for Ella. I don’t recognize the handwriting, and there’s no indication of where it’s from. Just a Montana postmark. Don’t look like it’s Jeremy’s handwriting. Maybe it’s a letter from one of her readers or something?"

"Probably," said Heyes, taking the letter from his partner, and putting it down on the table next to him. One more chapter from the new Mark Twain, and then he'd head on out to the Knave. "Have a good time, Kid."

"Don't worry 'bout me, Heyes. I'm goin' dancin' with the prettiest girl in Denver." And with that, he was gone.

Half an hour later, Hannibal Heyes finished the chapter. He couldn’t stop thinking about the mysterious letter. A Montana postmark? Maybe Jeremy had lost track of her movements, and it was something important – could’ve been his wife or his new law clerk who addressed it. Or it could have been from any number of people who knew Ella and weren’t aware she was out of the country. He didn't usually open her mail, but he couldn’t stop thinking there might be something in this letter she needed to know about. It couldn't do any harm to take a look. He tore open the envelope, only to discover that the handwriting inside didn't match that of the envelope. The letter was in a familiar hand, though one he hadn't seen in a long time. In over two years, in fact.

Sandy and her father would be arriving in Denver on Monday. She was sorry she had been gone for so long, but she was certain that Ella would understand that her healing retreat had been necessary. When she had contacted Jeremy to find out where they were living now, he had told her about Rachel and . . . here the ink was blurred as though by the writer's tears, and Heyes couldn't quite make it out, though he got the idea. She sent her best love to Heyes, and she hoped Jed hadn't quite forgotten her. She still loved him, of course, although she hadn't expected him to wait for her. But if Ella thought there was any chance that he still cared, well . . . . 

Heyes exhaled once. Here the Kid was going to be whispering sweet nothings to Emily, under a moonlit sky, and poor Sandy showing up all hopeful . . . . 

Damn! No poker at the Knave tonight. The Kid oughta know what was going on with Sandy before he made any promises to another girl. There’d been a time when Heyes was sure that the Kid felt more deeply about Sandy than he'd ever felt about anyone. That she was the only woman for him. Michelle Monet hadn’t been able to make him forget her, but now, for all Heyes knew, Emily Paulson was the one. Maybe, finally, Sandy's place in Kid Curry's heart had been given to another woman. No one could blame him, after all that time with no letter, with nothing.

But still, the Kid oughta know.

If only Heyes had been paying attention. If only he knew _where_ the barn dance was. It was gonna be a long night.

###

The night was lovely, a clear, warm, starry summer night with a pleasant breeze.

Emily was lovely, too, in a pretty dress with pink ribbons that matched the flush in her cheeks. He took her by the hands and swung her around in the dance, happy to feel so free.

And then the music stopped for a moment.

“This here’s a courtin’ song,” said the fiddler, his thick grey hair flopping down over his forehead, and his eyes twinkling behind his steel-rimmed spectacles. “So any of you that ain’t courtin’ might want to leave the floor now.”

But nobody did, and the musicians began to play again. This was one that the fiddler sang on, his strong tenor voice interweaving with the instruments, until suddenly all but the guitar player stopped and the fiddler’s voice rang out strong and true.

“I’ve got a jug of wine, Griselda  
Why must you waste your time in sorrow?  
Hold out your hand; have no fear.  
If we’re caught, I’ll marry you tomorrow!”

And then he raised his bow and the other musicians and they began again.

Kid Curry looked down at the pretty young woman who was dancing with him, her eyes sparkling from the exertion and from something else. And wordlessly, he drew her to the edge of the crowd, and then out the door, as he heard the words echoing behind them,

“Slippin’ through the woods in the dark of the night,  
Calling to the moon out yonder,  
Old lady moon, won’t you shine your silver light  
And lead me to my Griselda?”

He’d made up his mind. Why should he waste any more time in sorrow? He was sorry for so much that had happened to the people he cared about, but it was time he lived for himself. For himself, and for Emily. Now was the time. Forget courting--he'd ask Emily Paulson to be his wife, tonight.

He led her down by the brook that flowed past the barn, and they looked at the moonlight refracted in the rapidly moving waters. And then he looked into her eyes, and opened his mouth.

Only to shut it again in astonishment, at the shout that caught his attention and the sight of a disheveled and panting Heyes running towards him and waving a piece of paper.

###

It would be fair to say that Emily cried a few tears that night, and for several months afterwards. But when her father offered to resign his position with the HC Mines, she told him not to be silly. And by Christmas she was engaged to marry young Jimmy Peck, who'd never been an outlaw or loved a half-breed maiden, but who was clever and funny and had quite a future ahead of him.

But as for Jed Curry . . . .

When the train pulled into the depot, he was waiting there, anxiously scanning the passengers who were being helped down the steps onto the platform. Finally, he saw her. She was wearing a simple cotton dress, her hair was bound back, but not up, and her skin had been darkened by the sun, so that she looked more like a Blackfoot than ever. Her father was with her, as he’d somehow expected.

He saw her looking anxiously around the platform, not seeing him at first. But when their eyes met, the bright blue ones and the deep brown, it was like all that time had been a dream.

That was the first thing they both said.

And then he was kissing her, right there on the platform, and holding her close to him as though he dared not let go or she would disappear again.

"Jed, I love you so much," she whispered. "I was afraid you wouldn't wait for me all this time. I should have known . . . ."

It felt like a knife to his heart, and all he could respond with was, "Marry me, Sandy." Marry me, and never leave me again. He looked at Albert Raintree, standing beside them, and saw that the older man was trying to suppress a smile. “If that’s all right with you, sir,” he added.

“It’s my daughter you’re asking to marry you, not me,” Raintree said. “That’s her decision, not mine.”

"Of course, Jed, of course I'll marry you," she said, and then she lifted her lips to his again.

They agreed that they would marry as soon as Ella returned from Europe, since Sandy couldn't imagine it without having her friend to stand up with her. Heyes would have to write Ella at once, and pretend that there was some kind of unspecified emergency, and that she must return from Europe immediately.

Afterwards, Kid Curry couldn't help but wonder if they'd been tempting the fates . . . . 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story around 1999-2000. In 2018, I came across it, completed and nearly 5000 words long, on my external hard drive and sent it to Nelly_Pledge and Gemhenry, as a curiosity. They thought it much better than I did; I subsequently showed it to Nebraska Wildfire, as an example of my misfires, and she liked it, too. So here it is, on the grounds that they might be right. Heyes running to find the Kid with Sandy’s letter is rather more cheesy than my usual, but the show had its moments of cheesiness as well.
> 
> I’ve edited it to make it match up with “Interlude in New Orleans” (recently written and preceding this on the timeline) and as best I could with the final version of “Restless Heart” (first published 20 years previously, and taking place afterwards.) But there are some remaining inconsistencies with the latter (how much time has elapsed between San Francisco and Taos, exactly how Sandy’s return happened). I’m not going to start wreaking havoc with “Restless Heart," and will simply plead that ASJ itself was hardly a model of internal consistency. As I said above, bonus track.
> 
> “Griselda” is a modern song by the Holy Modal Rounders, though it’s always sounded to me as though it belongs at a barn dance in the past. The cover version on Yo La Tengo’s _Fakebook_ album was running through my head the whole time as I wrote about Kid Curry’s attempt to move on with his life, and thus I incorporated it in the story, against all that is right and proper historically. Mea maxima culpa.
> 
> Never say never, but I think I've now filled in the original Ella series timeline as much as I'm going to. There are at least a few more Alias Investigations (the sequel series) stories on the drawing board, however, so you haven't seen the last of these characters yet. With any luck, at least a few of you will be pleased to hear that.


End file.
